Offer You Cannot Refuse

A pretty cool random weakness.

The safe way to read this is "Gain 2 experience. At the start of each scenario, you have no resources."

You basically never want to have less than 5 resources in your pool unless this weakness is in your discard and you're far away from recycling. Play with that handicap and this weakness is actually fairly benign and can be a boon.

But buyer beware. Each time you fail to have the desired number of resources when your patron comes calling, it gets even harder to meet the offer the next time. You basically get three failures over the life of your investigator, and then your goose is cooked.

A neat thematic weakness. Do take note: you cannot choose to put this weakness in your deck, but since Arkham is heavily open to table rules I imagine some folks will still sneak it in.

drjones87 · 200
No group I have ever played with has chosen their weaknesses. It's a non-factor. — fiatluxia · 68
I started Innsmouth in a 4p group with Bob Jenkins and draw this weakness after creating my deck with "In the thick of it" and "Charon's obol". I had a hard time trying to save my ressources to avoid death because of the weakness of Bob and this one but it was really funny though. I was holding my breath at each upkeep phase! — Tirindor · 7
Discipline

Hypothetical Combo Alert! Consider the synergy with Ace of Rods. Get a free action with +2 to every stat - spend it on three baby attacks, and select for attacks that are buffed by multiple stats. Here are some ideas:

A solid day's work for the chosen one. And then you get to take your 3 regular actions...

Addendum: there are also lots of combos with Fang of Tyr'thrha, particularly that card's ability to attack enemies without moving to them, or to move during a flurry of attacks.

MrWeasely · 42
I suppose you didn't see the action trigger on this discipline. So after you have activated it you only have to actions left without other effects. — Tharzax · 1
Ace of Rods gives the seed action for Balance of Body, leaving the 3 main investigator actions untouched. — MrWeasely · 42
@Tharzax well Ace of Rods gives him an additional action — Nenananas · 267
That's actually a pretty awesome combo. Nice find! — Nenananas · 267
Cool, if it is fine for you, I add it to my Guide for Lily as I try to reference all the cool possibilities for her :) — Valentin1331 · 78265
Go for it! — MrWeasely · 42
Scavenging

So... this card... this card is insane. there is no other way to say how unbelievably insane this effect is, letting you play an item from your discard pile is both a 100% reliable tutored draw and a play action rolled into it, in the class that has 0/1 cost items galore its just makes you immortal with Cherished Keepsake and Leather Coat, as the other reviews point out you can use it with investigate cards themselves to boost your investigate which helps you get more cards which.... [looping intensifies]

But today I come to ring its bell because of one avenue of power that this humble card totally wrecks open, Story Cards.

Story cards range from good to under costed to down right broken, and sure not all of them are items, but in the cases they are and they have a low cost you can just cram all of them into your deck and use their often ridiculous abilities right from your discard pile then if they have a slot just overwrite them and then play them again...and again...and again, and never spend an action (or in some cases a resource) to do so.

Sure would be nice if we had a campaign that had some decent story item's or two in it huh? Fake wink

I am legitimately having to struggle not just slamming two copies of both Scavenging and then Scavenging into every deck ever now, I'd honestly not be sad paying double for this in XP.

I'm not sure this card will ever get any stronger than now though given we have cards that give it infinite fuel Short Supply Forced Learning cards that give you unlimited money with it Schoffner's Catalogue and basically any effect you could want The Council's Coffer.

O...and its still slotless so you get two play actions every turn if you do so something as crazy as investigate slightly higher than you needed to be, this gets even the slowest set up investigator fully installed while keeping them focused on their primary task.

TL:DR: its bad in Yorick 1/5.

Zerogrim · 295
I find the biggest limit on Scavenging is the lack of high intellect survivors, who would regularly make the plus two. — LegendRJS · 3
I agree. I think, it's best in off class survivors like Minh (or Agnes, who can trigger it on a willpower investigation spell). I wrote a review @ Pantalone from "Carnevale of Horrors", and this was a very strong combo for Minh. — Susumu · 381
On second thought, "Medico Della Peste" would be as great on Agnes, repeatingly healing Horror (or Damage for II version) is fuel for her ability. Minh still gets the edge on this combo, as she has a much easier tools to assemble the pieces for it. — Susumu · 381
Most survivors do have low int but there are so many ways to boost your int in survivor, also bless builds will easily pass by 2 very often. but yea I do agree it gets easier to make it nuts outside survivors. — Zerogrim · 295
It’s very good versatile target for any seeker with some items, especially fast like ice pick — Django · 5154
No, it's not. You can only versatile into the level 0 version. But this one is level 2, we are talking about. — Susumu · 381
Discipline

Flipping this back is trickier than it sounds. It is a 2 turns process, because before the round ends, you must always draw 1 card. Unless you get a weakness, "after the round ends" will already had passed a process of drawing 1 card.

The only kind of round you can flip back is that you must first start the round at 1 card, use it up somehow in treachery test or inside your turn, then draw a new one to 1 card right before the end of round. (= Did not have 2 or more cards at any point.)

  • First you must find a turn where you can dump an entire hand of X cards (X > 1) to 0. Before this round ends, you will draw one card. If not getting a weakness, making this round's hand count : 1 min X max, therefore you cannot flip back in this "dump turn".
  • The next turn, you begin with 1 card you just draw. You must also find a way to dump this card away, making your hand 0 once again. Before this round ends, you will draw one card. Making this round 0 min 1 max, then you can flip it because both are less than 2.
    • Supposed that you failed to use this 1 card on this turn (no eligible test to commit, the cost is high, Fast criteria not quite right, etc.) the end round draw will make your hand 1 + 1 = 2 cards. When this happen, you must start the process all over again, trying to zero out the hand on the next turn, then try again to zero out the 1 new card on the next next turn.

In other words, "if your hand did not have 2 or more cards" can be interpreted as : "You must make your hand 0 card at the end of turn, for 2 consecutive rounds."

5argon · 11171
It should actually be interpreted as "You must make your hand 0 cards by Upkeep Phase". You can go first, and if you choose your cards wisely during deckbuilding, you can commit your cards away to your teammate's skill tests even if you cant play them all — chirubime · 28014
I wonder if it's even worth it to force an unflip to the ready side. I would read this card as "Once per game, you can replenish your hand to have 5 cards. Until then enjoy a +1 book boost. Be extra happy, if you draw your Elder Sign afterwards." — Susumu · 381
Yeah it is, but more often than not the value of an action for a 3+ card draw in a single action far outweighs a +1 Int bonus. — Sojourne · 97